The women's basketball team is treading in unfamiliar water.
It may not have been exactly how they drew it up, but nevertheless, the Jumbos recorded the first NESCAC Tournament victory in program history, a 65-50 victory over the seventh-seeded Middlebury Panthers on Saturday afternoon in front of their home crowd at Cousens Gym.
The victory kept Tufts alive for another week, with at least one more game guaranteed - a match-up with No. 3 seeded Bates on Saturday in Brunswick, Maine. The Bobcats beat No. 6 Amherst 63-53 on Saturday and will be joined by No. 1 Bowdoin and No. 4 Williams at the league's championship weekend.
Both Williams and Tufts will try to prevent another Bates-Bowdoin championship duel, as the two have squared off in the NESCAC finals for four-straight years, with the Polar Bears winning every time.
Coach Carla Berube's squad took its first step towards dethroning the league's powerhouses by recording a similar victory to its 61-50 win over the Panthers on Feb. 2. Tufts did not play its A-game for the entirety of the contest, but had just enough firepower to keep Middlebury at bay and pull away with the win.
"I'm happy with a win," Berube said. "Was it exactly the way we wanted to play? No. But I don't think we've done that yet this year. But we seemed to finish the game when it was close and we pulled away at the end. I'll take that over playing well and losing, because that can happen, too. You're always happy with a win and finally getting the monkey off our back by winning our first NESCAC Tournament game."
Though the Jumbos led the game from the 11:34 mark in the first until the final buzzer, they were unable to put Middlebury to rest until the game's final few minutes. Untimely fouls on Tufts' part, coupled with the Panthers' league-leading touch from the line - they shot 92.9 percent for the game - kept the score close.
"It's not even that we're playing tough defense - it's that we're trying to block shots with the shot clock going down," Berube said. "All you have to do is put your hands up. There were a couple of those, but I think our defense was pretty good. Our post players did a great job of helping out on their shooters, but I think we gave up one too many offensive rebounds."
"This game we definitely had some good moments, but none of the moments were back-to-back," sophomore Kim Moynihan said. "We never had that big moment, but we kept our heads up and put it together at the end, which matters most."
Tufts even kept its head up after Middlebury sophomore Emily Johnson hit two-consecutive threes to bring her team to within three, 31-28, 10 seconds prior to intermission. If not for a lay-up from junior Khalilah Ummah with 0.8 seconds remaining on the clock in the first frame, the Jumbos would have gone into halftime with a slim lead and the momentum in the Panthers' favor.
"We definitely had worked on hedging out on their guards, specifically [Johnson], the shooter, and we really didn't do a great job with that in the first half," senior Taryn Miller-Stevens said. "In the first half, I think she had three threes, so in the second half we tried to have our post players hedging out higher and putting more ball pressure on her when she tried to turn the corner. And I think that really helped us because she didn't really see many open looks in the second half."
Besides its presence on the defensive end, the post play carried the offense through much of the game. Senior co-captain Laura Jasinski and Ummah combined for 32 points - Jasinski emerging as a strong presence at the top of the key against Middlebury's 2-3 zone, and Ummah working off the blocks down low.
Still, Middlebury matched Tufts on the boards, as both teams pulled down 39 rebounds, a distinct change from the 54-39 advantage the Jumbos had in their game against the Panthers earlier in the season.
"I think that Middlebury really came to play today, and they hit some really big shots in the first half," Berube said. "Emily Johnson's a tough player, a great shooter. It was tough staying with them. They set a lot of screens, had great movement and they hit some shots. And we also bailed them out quite a few times by fouling on jump shooters with under five seconds to go on the shot clock. I think Middlebury played better than when they came here last time."
As opposed to Middlebury, who Tufts had only played just two weeks ago, the Bobcats have not seen the Jumbos in several weeks. The two squared off on Jan. 20 in a game that Tufts won 72-64, erasing a two-point deficit with a 9-0 run late in the game.
Second in the league in total points behind Bowdoin, the Bobcats will force Tufts to play its characteristic pesky man-to-man defense. But as the Jumbos' defense has been their bread-and-butter throughout the season, they're looking forward to the possibility of crowning a new NESCAC champion in 2007.
"I'm excited for the semifinals, because I think each game over the last few, we've been playing better," Miller-Stevens said. "And I think in the semis we'll be able to put it all together."